Hawaii, San Diego and Home

In our last blog I wrote we had plenty of time with five sea days between Hawaii and San Diego to complete the blog.  Well, I am writing this on an AA flight between DFW and MCO.  The last five days of the cruise were a whirlwind of activity.   Plus the Cruise Director asked me to do a presentation.  Seems many of our fellow passengers were with us on the world cruise and asked him to find a slot.  I presented an overview of the early Soviet manned spaceflight program.  It was the first time for that presentation and I had to finish up the scripting and some rehearsal.  It was very well received and I had fun doing it.  Now back to Hawaii.

 Our first stop was Hilo arriving in rain and windy conditions.  We went into town where we had a great pizza and I sent the last blog.  Me at work.

Noreen wanted a picture with the Lea so I had her stand here.  Don’t tell her about the sign.

Then it was on to Honolulu.  Our first stop was the Pearl Harbor Historic site, home of  the Arizona Memorial and the Battleship Missouri.

It was to windy to take the ferry to the Arizona.  The ferries are run by the Navy and stopping them is not unusual.  We did get to see it from the landside Memorial site.

And the Missouri.

We then headed to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific; also known to many as the Punchbowl.

The main monument within the cemetery. 

Acres and acres of markers.

We found it very sobering and reflective to visit Pearl Harbor and the cemetery.  Especially since we arrived by ship and sailed down the same channel that the battleships, carriers, subs and every other type of vessel had sailed through in WWII.

Day 2 in Honolulu was off to town and Waikiki Beach.  Noreen had to have a picture on the famous beach.

We found these fenced off rocks.  According to a local “Ask Me” person they are sacred stones and if you leave your Lea there you are joining with the spirits.  I don’t know what part the two pigeons play in the whole thing.

This was the best store we saw all day.  It had the dumbest statements and saying on t-shirts and anything else that could have print on it.  People would stand in front of the window and read the T-shirts for the longest time……just like us.

Our final port in Hawaii was Lahania.  We spent a few hours walking around town in the morning.  Noreen said she didn’t need any more jewelry.  I thought we were done shopping until I realized she had just changed her focus.

In the afternoon we went for a very enjoyable sail on a catamaran.  This is the boat as we passed it going in on a tender in the morning.

On boarding we settled in.  Noreen picked seats close to the “refreshments.”  Actually they were the best seats onboard considering the wind, spray and sun.   We had a very leisurely and relaxing 2 hour sail around the area.

This is my favorite picture from our stop.  We found ourselves walking behind two of our table mates from the ship.  Bill and Connie are 91 and 88 years old respectively.  They have been married for 65 years. Here they were walking along, holding hands and being very much in young love.  A model for us.  They were delightful table mates.  They are British, having come to America and now living in Denver.  Bill was in the British Army and landed in Normandy on D+3 with an artillery battery and fought across Europe.

That was the end of our Hawaii time and we set sail for the US arriving in san Diego five days later.  San Diego is a really nice town with a lot of amenities, excellent weather, and local attractions.  it is certainly a navy town.

 

Upon disembarking we learned that one of our bags had been lost between the ship and the terminal, a distance of 50 feet.  Then our flight to DFW was delayed causing us to miss our connection and switch to a later flight (which I am on right now at 2335) and get home sometime Tuesday morning.  But, we met an old colleague and friend, Rob and his lovely wife Melinda at the airport.  Together we passed the delay at a lovely restaurant in San Diego’s Little Italy.  It made all the problems go away.

 Thus the end of another voyage.  We had a great time and hope you enjoyed joining us.  Keep you comments and questions coming, we love to hear from you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

South Pacific Islands November 18–24, 2014

Update:  We’re sending this blog from Hilo, Hawaii, November 29th   All is well.

We began our swing through the Pacific Islands after leaving Australia with Noumea and Ile des Pines.  We’ve been to both before and choose to stay on the ship and spend the day relaxing.  So we begin the blog with our visit to Lautoka, Fiji.  The view from our veranda.

We wandered around one of the largest markets I’ve ever seen; indoor and street side.

Of course we have to look closer at the local wares.

We stopped by Jack’s store.  You may remember this photo from our Grand World visit to Lautoka.  Same store and pose, different guy.  The weapon is called a “Neck Breaker” which they use prior to the cannibal forks.

I offered to take Noreen on an open air tour of the island.  For some reason she declined??

Our next stop was Suva, Fiji.  Noreen immediately made friends with the local police sergeant in their interesting uniforms.  She is holding her hat due to the winds.

 

We had extensive plans to wander around the town and area until we passed the market.  At that Noreen decided she had seen enough of Suva and went back to the ship.  You miss the full impact of the market without smell-o-vision.

But in spite of what seemed unusual for a market to us it was really a very interesting place.  The people were very friendly and the area clean and very organized.  I took some time and wandered around a bit more.  A lot of the people that looked like they were living at a barely subsistence level had cell phones.

 

They also sold live fish.

It started raining and the plastic overhead keep most of the rain out of the market area.

By now you may be asking yourself, “Where are the lush jungles and beautiful waterfalls of the Pacific Islands?”  They are on each island.  But to get to them it is usually a four or five hour round trip in a rickety old bus with open windows on dusty, bumpy roads; in very hot and humid temperatures.  We did some of those trips on our first visits to the Pacific islands.  This is our third swing through the Pacific and we’ll be back in a few months so we tend to stick close to town unless there is a very special attraction we want to see.

Our next stop was Apia, Soma on November 24th.  It was a raining overcast day.  But that didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of our welcoming committee. Apia is only 100 miles or so from American Soma where we were a few months ago.

We shared the port with the National Geographic expedition ship “Orion.”   They usually sail in Antarctica but are conducting some special research in this area.

 

We hope you you enjoyed this brief trip to some of the Pacific Islands.  As I write this we are one day out of Hawaii.  We’ll be spending four days in the area with three ports of call.  Then we have five sea days back to San Diego so I’ll have plenty of time to finish our last entry for this trip.

Thanks for allowing us to share our travel's with you.  Drop us an e-mail, we love to hear from you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Port Douglas, North Queensland, Australia November 10, 2014

We arrived in Port Douglas on a very sunny and hot day.  Port Douglas is located about 30 KM from Cairns, the main port for visiting the Great Barrier reef.  On our two previous visits to Australia we docked in Cairns.  So this port was new to us.  Today Port Douglas exists on a combination of Tourism, local industry and some agriculture.  It is also the Australian home of many of the rich & famous with stars from entertainment and business having multimillion dollar homes on the high ground overlooking the ocean and GBR.  But Port Douglas (PD) has a much more interesting past.  It was a sleepy outpost of civilization until gold was found in 1873.  Growth and immigration followed the gold rush.  Then in 1882 an unusually rainy wet season made the roads to PD impassable and thousands of people came close to starvation.  A more reliable supply route was needed and in 1887 construction was started on the Cairns-Kuranda Railway which opened in 1891.  The railway basically followed the Barron Gorge with high ground on one side and a precipitous drop-off on the other.  Over the last century+ the railway has been a lifeline between PD, Cairns and the towns in-between.  During WWII it is critical to the movement of troops and supplies to fend off an expected Japanese invasion.  It also carried thousands of GIs to rest camps in the area during the war.  Today it is known as the Kuranda Scenic Railway and carries tourists between Kuranda and Cairns on a two hour scenic journey.  The reason I told you all that was because that is what Noreen and I did, we rode the rails.

Our adventure began with a bus ride from PD to Kuranda during which our bus broke down and we transferred to bus #2.

 

Due to the bus problem we arrived in Kuranda with only a few minutes to spare before the train left.  I got a wurst at a local stand while Noreen…..

For those of you following along on my toilets of the world, I haven’t seen urinal trenches in a long time.

Finally we arrive.

The train is pulled by Common Wealth diesel engines built in the late 1960s.  The snake drawn on the side of the engine is Buda-Dji, the carpet snake who in the Aboriginal people’s Dreamtime legend carved out the Barron River gorge.

The carriages are refurbished originals built from 1903 to 1913.  The train was so long the engine was always well past the station and I could never get a good picture of it.

There are standard class cabins for most of the train.

And then there is Noreen class.

There was one stop during the trip at the best place for viewing Barron Falls and Gorge.  The falls drops 875 feet.  Not much water flow this time of year.

Gotta do a selfie!!

On one side we are this close to the raising terrain, riding a cut through the mountain.

On the other side is a drop into the gorge and the valley below.

Stoney Creek Falls Bridge is the most scenic of the bridges along the route.  As hairpin turn you can see the train around the bend.  The bridge has a tight 4 chain radius (train talk).    We’re moving at a fast walk.

The falls the bridge is named after.  Not much water fall this time of year.

 

We went through eight tunnels.  These tunnels were dug with dynamite and picks and shovels.

Coming into the outskirts of the town of Freshwater.  Some housing shots.

Arrival in Freshwater Station, the end of our 1.5 hour journey.

We set off for the ship and again our bus died.  Here we are waiting for the replacement.  We finally made it back to the ship hot, tired and glad to be “home.”

All in all we had a great time.  We aren’t much for watching an 1.5 hours of scenery passing by but it was a nice break from the ship and a different adventure than when we usually visit the Great Barrier Reef area of Queensland.  Hope you enjoyed the ride.